


Friends Don't

by OnlySlightlyObsessed1



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: A vague au, Alternate Universe, M/M, Originally posted in Spiced Peaches LIV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2019-08-20 11:34:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16554998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnlySlightlyObsessed1/pseuds/OnlySlightlyObsessed1
Summary: (Chapter 1 stands alone and appears in Spiced Peaces (see notes). Chapter 2 is certain parts rewritten from Jim's point of view and does not appear in the original story in Spiced Peaches.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song, TOS characters in some vague future where there’s advanced technology and a war and a navy with ships in the water and not space, though you’re free to imagine otherwise.
> 
> Spiced Peaches issue LIV here: https://spiced-peaches.livejournal.com/91149.html  
> The song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGmJMvnDZEg

Spock visits him just once on shore leave. He hasn’t called ahead, he just shows up. McCoy calls his mom and cancels dinner.

They walk to a diner by McCoy’s apartment and he tries not to stare. It’s easy, in a way he hadn’t expected, to be out with Spock. They snipe at each other on the way and he realizes he’s more relaxed than he’s been in months. His shoulder brushes Spock’s.

“It’s good to see you.” McCoy says when they reach a stalemate halfway through dinner, and Spock raises his eyebrows in that way that meant he’s smiling. McCoy wants to keep talking, _I’m glad you’re okay, I wish you weren’t so far away all the time._ Instead, he raises his eyebrows right back and takes another bite of his stew.

 

Spock stays the night and they drink together, arguing over pointless semantics, the latest biochemical research that Spock manages to keep up on somehow. McCoy is tipsy but Spock’s solid and reassuring next to him on the couch. He lets himself lean into him. When Spock moves his hand to put his drink down and their fingers brush. If it was five years ago, he would have told McCoy to go to bed.

“Would you be willing to watch a movie? I have not had a chance to see anything in the past six months.” Spock says instead when McCoy yawns. He hands him the remote.

“Go ahead and pick something.”

He sees Spock shiver slightly as he sits up so he grabs a couple blankets off the chair next to them. When he sits back down Spock re-positions himself with the blanket, their legs pressed together.

At some point during the movie McCoy falls asleep and he wakes up on the couch the next morning alone. Spock has left him breakfast, cold now, and coffee. He doesn’t drink coffee, he must have made it specially for McCoy.

 

Wherever Spock is, and McCoy usually doesn’t know, he almost exclusively calls when McCoy’s off shift and might reasonably be awake. Not always though, and tonight the comm wakes him at 1:13.

“I’m sorry to wake you so late at night.” Spock’s voice comes through the receiver at the wrong register, distorted by the distance.

“Spock?” McCoy asks, still half asleep.

“Yes, it is me. If you wish to return to sleep I will not object. I have no urgent news, it is only, I do not know when I will next have an opportunity to call.” It’s hard to tell, over the comm and having just woke up, but Spock seems hesitant, unsure.

“No, no, I can talk. I don’t have a shift till noon tomorrow.” He says, “How are you?”

“I am well.” Spock replies. “It has been, calm.”

McCoy rather doubts it, but he says, “That’s good.” It doesn’t really matter, if Spock wants to play normal he’ll go along. “We’ve been busy over here, they’re rolling out a new program . . .”

Spock makes the appropriate polite noises and inquires over McCoy’s well-being. He isn’t sure what kind of favors Spock has called in but the call only ends when McCoy is truly falling asleep. Spock is ever a man of his word, McCoy doesn’t hear from him again for seven months until he goes on R&R.

 

Spock brings Jim, his Captain, the one he talks about, and they go for drinks. Spock is sent to get them and Jim leans in across the gap.

“He talks about you a lot.” He says, expression unreadable.

“I’ve heard a lot about you too.” McCoy replies just as evenly, and Jim breaks into a smile. Spock returns with brandy.

Later, McCoy is just shy of drunk and Jim is watching them, the barest hint of a smile on his face. McCoy knows he is leaning on Spock, but Spock is leaning on him and he can’t bring himself to move. Spock is warm, and as long as he’s pressed against McCoy’s side in the booth they migrated to, McCoy knows exactly where he is and that he’s safe. He doesn’t take it for granted. He knows that next time Spock might not come back.

Jim calls it a night, and McCoy’s couch is always available so they catch a cab back through downtown. The city lights flicker across Spock’s face as McCoy watches and he’s squashed in between Spock and Jim. If Jim weren’t there he wouldn’t have the self-control to curb his tongue and he’d say something stupid, like ‘you’re beautiful’ or worse, ‘I love you’. As it is Spock is offering plausible but unlikely vacations they could take when his tour ends. Vacations he apparently expects McCoy to accompany him on, though with what vacation time McCoy can’t be sure. But the casual domesticity of it makes his chest ache.

 

Two years later they both come back for good this time, crashing on McCoy’s couch again. Somehow Jim got to be his friend too, and he still hasn’t moved to a nicer apartment. Spock likes to hike, something about walking meditation, so McCoy’s first weekend off is just him and Jim sitting by the counter with coffee.

“I’m glad you and Spock are friends.” Jim says out of the blue. He says ‘friends’ in a strange tone, like he’s picked up on the thing that bounces back and forth between them.

McCoy mutters, “Me too,” into his coffee mug, embarrassed, but more than that, wondering if it’s true. Friend’s didn’t . . . Well. He didn’t have any other friends like Spock, that was for sure.

 

Jim, apparently, has been offered a desk job, and McCoy doesn’t actually believe him when he first tells them he took it. Spock hands him a napkin to wipe up the coffee he’s spit all over the table at the diner. He’s not surprised by Spock’s teaching post. He’ll be good at it.

Both Spock and Jim get their own apartments quickly, close by. Too close, really, to both McCoy’s and the Academy for Spock to need a car, but he gets one of those too. McCoy watches them both as closely as he can, but they settle into civilian life easily. He supposes technically they all still work within the military, maybe it’s easier that way.

Their new apartments mean they can switch who hosts. Board games, chess, poker, drinks, once or twice a movie marathon. Spock lives just above Jim and McCoy finds himself drifting their way after work more often than not. Jim spends a good portion of his time trying to convince him to move in to the same building.

“It’s quieter over here, we’re protected from the heavy traffic on 19th.” He says over whiskey and blackjack. “Plus, you get a view of the bay, and the apartments are bigger.” He spreads his hands as if he’s won the argument.

McCoy laughs a little and shakes his head.

“I don’t need to pay that much more in rent, just for a larger apartment I wouldn’t have the time to take advantage of.” He says. Jim argues a little more, he’s genuine, but it’s lighthearted. Spock says nothing.

 

He refuses, point blank, to let McCoy walk home. McCoy doesn’t try very hard. He’s not even tipsy anymore, but it is late, and Spock has a set to his shoulders that makes McCoy want to gather him up and hold him close.

He does not touch Spock.

“You can’t park by my building anyway, Spock, just drop me at the park, I can walk from there.” He says. Spock has taken the longer route, McCoy expects, expressly for that purpose. But when Spock pulls over at the park he turns the car off and gets out with McCoy.

“I will walk with you.” He says, and ignores McCoy’s strange look and wordless protest.

They stop by the gate at the bottom floor and Spock does not bid him goodbye when he turns. He can’t invite Spock in, at this hour Spock’s car will get towed if he leaves it there too long, and McCoy knows he has papers to grade the next day. He watches Spock and fiddles with the chipkey, slightly outdated, nothing like the brand-new fancy biometric scanners on Spock and Jim’s respective apartments. They aren’t quite a safety hazard yet though, and goodness knows McCoy’s building manager won’t update the lock system until there’s at least a couple break ins.

“Perhaps over the winter term break, you would be willing to join me visiting the Grand Canyon.” Spock says out of nowhere. McCoy, caught by surprise, suddenly remembers the night he met Jim, when Spock had been talking of vacations. Then, it had been Yellowstone.

“If I can finagle my way into some vacation time I’ll go with you.” He says. It’s not the time for this conversation, he’s not even sure if the question is real or symbolic, but he’s reluctant to go inside. Helplessly, he wants to kiss Spock goodnight.

In the pause between Spock saying, “We can discuss this further another time,” and, “Goodnight, Doctor.” McCoy wonders if Spock wants to kiss him too. None of his friends call him ‘Doctor’.

 

Doctor patient confidentiality keeps him from answering Spock and Jim’s messages. _Even though the patient’s dead,_ a horrible voice whispers in the back of his mind. He spends a while talking with M’Benga instead. Geoff’s a good doctor, and a good friend, and he couldn’t save the kid either. But when he returns to the apartment his commlink is blinking too and he sighs while the messages read out. There are dishes in the sink but the dishwasher’s empty, so he loads it. He doesn’t get through even Jim’s second message before the buzzer sounds. The messages were from a while ago, and Jim had never been a patient man, at least in the time McCoy had known him.

They come up the stairs looking chilled, Spock must have left his car by the park again.

“You look awful Bones,” Jim says, “what happened?”

They take their customary seats on the couch and Spock wraps himself in one of McCoy’s throws. He can’t answer Jim’s question in any real way. The kid’s dead and he won’t burden them with the details, although they’d probably understand. Nor can he tell them how it hurts to look at them, to think that pure dumb luck kept them safe for those years so far away. How he almost can’t breathe at the thought of Spock blown to pieces, or bleeding out, or drowning, or suffocating, or a hundred other things. How if not for unlikely chance after unlikely chance he might never have gotten to meet Jim at all. He knows they had their own medical teams, that they, and everyone else, were good at their jobs. It doesn’t make him feel better.

“Rough surgery. Had to tell the family he didn’t make it.” He says because he has to say something. He remembers the sister’s stony face when he walked to the waiting room, she’d already known, following him into the room to the side, maybe from his own expression. Jim gets up and gives McCoy a one-armed hug, taking the mug he didn’t realize he was holding. It’s more reassuring than he wants it to be, because he’s almost angry with them.

But Jim takes over and washes a couple mugs by hand, water in the kettle boiling for tea, and McCoy sits on the couch on the other side of Spock, who is still wearing both his sweaters and the blanket. He tucks another one around McCoy’s legs and scrolls through his movie library. Uncharacteristically, it’s a quiet evening.

 

A week later they’re at Spock’s, and Jim’s asleep in Spock’s giant chair. It’s his favorite. Spock and Jim’s sixth chess game lays unfinished on the table. Neither McCoy nor Spock are asleep, but McCoy lets his eyes close while he tries to ignore the fact that Spock is laying along the couch using his side as a pillow and holding one of McCoy’s hands, turning it over idly in both of his own. Spock’s hands still and he exhales in what McCoy would call a sigh if it were anyone else.

McCoy peels his eyes open.

“Spock,” he whispers.

“Yes Doctor,” Spock replies just as quietly. McCoy doesn’t know what he wants to say, so he shifts around, reclaiming his hand and dislodging Spock, until they are looking at each other. They’re both in awkward positions, Spock essentially holding a sit up position, with some assistance from the couch, and McCoy leaned back uncomfortably.

“What are we doing?” He asks, and he hopes Spock won’t make him clarify. He can’t bring himself to say anything further.

“I do not know,” Spock replies. It’s so late it’s almost morning.

“I don’t know either,” McCoy says, and he feels foolish, like a teenager at a sleepover, which is essentially what this is. Spock swings his legs over to sit properly, and McCoy can straighten and still look at him, so he does. But then Spock takes his hand, actually holding it this time, and McCoy has to close his eyes and try not to panic, because apparently, Spock is bolder than he is.

“I have wondered if I imagined it.” He admits.

“You didn’t.” McCoy says, still whispering, not sure he could speak louder if he wanted to. He opens his eyes then, and looks at Spock.

Spock is staring at him, he’s attempting the bland neutral non-expression he’s so good at, but he maintains eye contact, and McCoy knows him well enough to be able to read him, even in the dark. He leans forward and Spock’s breathing changes. McCoy knows his own is coming faster than it should be. He rests his forehead against Spock’s. It’s enough, he’s been bold enough, because Spock is pushing forward now too, tilting his head and matching their mouths. Spock’s lips are dry until they are not, and there isn’t tongue, it’s too soft and tentative. Their hands on the couch are still intertwined, but now mostly supporting them, McCoy brings his other hand to Spock’s chest, holding on to the blanket and bracing himself as he leans forward. Spock’s hand comes to the juncture between his neck and shoulder and settles there tentatively.

After a moment they break apart, and McCoy turns his head, just to breathe against Spock’s cheek, and Spock shifts, seemingly unwilling to move further from McCoy but trapped in their awkward positioning by the blanket cocoon he had wrapped himself in earlier. McCoy breaks them apart and pulls Spock with him into the corner of the couch, where Spock can lean on him and the armrest, again laying mostly sideways. He kisses Spock this time, although it’s just as gentle and tentative. Spock’s free hand strokes his face, and McCoy takes advantage of being allowed to touch to run his hands down Spock’s sides, not particularly minding the fabric in the way.

Spock breaks away, “Doctor—” He begins, but McCoy can’t let it go, not anymore.

“No, Spock,” He says, and hurries to complete his sentence as Spock moves away slightly, “it’s McCoy, or Leonard if you want, just please don’t call me doctor.” _Not here, not like this_. It’s probably a milestone they should have passed years earlier, but it’s the best he can do.

Spock does not relax back into his hands, but he does not pull away further either.

“Very well,” he says, “it is late, tomorrow, there are things we should discuss.” He doesn’t actually use either of McCoy’s names, and McCoy tries not to be disappointed about it.

“You’re right. We should,” he struggles to find the words, “figure out what we want to be doing.”

At this, the tension in Spock softens somewhat and he leans more of his weight back onto McCoy. After a moment, he rests entirely on McCoy, pressing his face into his shoulder, and McCoy wraps his arms around him and leans his head back. He wants to close his eyes and fall asleep like this, but he’s only wearing a t-shirt, and Spock’s left arm is crushed between their chests. Eventually, reluctantly, he pushes Spock off him to go to the bathroom, he hadn’t meant to stay over, he hadn’t brought a toothbrush or a change of clothes, he pilfers Spock’s mouthwash. When he comes back out to the living room he sees Spock has covered Jim in a blanket and replaced some of the pillows that fell from the couch.

They lock eyes for a moment.

Spock says, “If the couch will be uncomfortable, I can bring you a cot to sleep on.” McCoy assures him there is no need. Spock slips into the bedroom, and McCoy arranges himself amid the truly inordinate amount of blankets Spock has piled on the couch. Despite the unfamiliar nervousness and the giddiness in his chest he falls asleep quickly.

 

They don’t get to talk the next day. McCoy’s not technically on call, but he is both in charge of a lot of people and arguably the most experienced surgeon, so he’s called in anyway. The day after that they both work, and it’s that evening that McCoy nervously calls Spock, and they say much more than they should over the comm, but they do talk, and it’s more than they’ve managed before.

Despite all his anxious predictions, afterwards it’s just as easy as it always has been.

 

He has dinner with Jim one evening, when Spock is stuck in, as Jim calls it, “administrative meeting hell”, and everything between them is still new and delicate.

“It took you two longer than I thought.” Jim says.

“Did it?” McCoy asks, and he’s honestly a bit surprised. Not because Jim saw it coming, Jim is perceptive and neither he nor Spock had been particularly subtle, but he had thought for a while it was never going to happen at all.

“Well,” says Jim reflectively, “I thought you may have already been a thing, Spock’s a difficult man to read, and he’s quite private. I thought maybe, since he talked about you at all,” he doesn’t finish the thought.

McCoy doesn’t know what to say.

“Regardless, I mean, you were his ‘someone back home’, even if neither of you would admit it.”

“I guess so.” McCoy says and he knows he’s blushing.

“He’d get that look on his face, maybe you’ve seen it, I don’t know, but the look people get when they’re away and homesick and they want to crawl into whatever picture or commline or memory and get back. I’ve seen it on a lot of people over a lot of things, but with Spock it was only ever about you.” Jim refills McCoy’s drink.

“I was pretty sure, actually, even up to meeting you. My family’s all the way in Iowa of course, and Spock’s a good friend, he said you’d put us up. I watched you that night and the way you two talked I was sure. But then Spock stayed on the couch with me. It was honestly a bit confusing.” Jim’s smile is teasing.

“And I thought, for sure, once we get back, but still, it’s been ten months. You took it slow, you’re careful.”

There’s a choking feeling in McCoy’s throat, but it’s Jim. If he can talk to anyone about this, it’s Jim, so he manages, “I can’t screw this up.”

Jim pats his shoulder encouragingly, “No, you won’t, the two of you? You’ve always been in it for the long haul.” His smile turns mischievous. “Not like me.”

McCoy will give it to him, on a technicality. But he remembers what Spock told him, how broken up he had been over Edith Keeler, and he saw for himself when Jim got the call about Janice Lester. Jim’s built his life around platonic friendships shaped by his career, and McCoy has too. The only difference is that one of McCoy’s turned out to be not so platonic.

 

Jim likes classic movies, and Spock likes to provide a snarky running commentary, so McCoy tends to capitulate, and sometimes he chimes in when a character gets up and brushes themself off after a hit that would have seriously injured them. Tonight, he doesn’t care much what they put on, and Jim picks a comedy, but they mostly laugh at Spock who, intentionally or not, misses just about every joke. It’s late when Jim heads out, and McCoy feels like he should be leaving too, but there’s no point in pretense, he has clothes in Spock’s dresser and an extra toothbrush in the drawer and Jim’s voice is too cheery as he wishes them goodnight to be anything but teasing.

He follows Spock to the bedroom and neither of them bother with pajamas. The light’s off, Spock’s tucked up beside him breathing slowly, and he worries that one day it will be so common place he’ll forget to appreciate it. He turns over and presses his face into Spock’s shoulder blades and pushes the thought from his mind. It’s early days yet, and there are far worse futures than if years down the line he can take it for granted that Spock will be in bed next to him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim's perspective on some pieces from chapter one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure why so much of what I post is from Jim's perspective. I wrote the vast majority of this months ago, and then for some reason I was motivated to post it today. None of this seconds chapter appears in Spiced Peaces, but it seemed pointless to make it its own story.

Spock’s Doctor McCoy meets them at the port. It’s late, but Spock had promised McCoy would still want to go out with them, and seeing the delighted grin McCoy can’t seem to keep of his face as he walks up, Jim can see he’s right.

“Spock!” he calls, still too far away, and Jim glances over, all too aware of how badly Spock is containing his own pleased expression. It shouldn’t have been so surprising then, that he accepts McCoy’s hug with none of the stiffness that tends to be characteristic of him, on the few occasions Jim has seen him forced to accept physical contact from strangers.

“You must be Captain Kirk.” McCoy offers his hand, still grinning.

“Jim, please. And you must be Doctor McCoy,” Jim replies.

“Jim, a pleasure.”

The man’s smile is infectious, and Jim finds himself returning it as he watches McCoy bounce on his toes. “Likewise.”

 

Jim can’t stop yawning, but he accepts McCoy’s invitation to help himself to the kitchen and makes himself some toast.

By the time he finishes changing and taking his turn in the bathroom he’s surprised to see Spock tucking himself in on one leg of the L shaped couch. McCoy had shot down his aborted offer to find a hotel, insisting that it was late, and his couch wasn’t that uncomfortable. Even still, the way they’d been at the bar—

McCoy had been at least buzzed, and Jim had been pleasantly warm and fuzzy, Spock had been talking, he’d only had one, or maybe two, drinks but he couldn’t seem to keep himself quiet. At one point, McCoy leaned into him and his touch did what the alcohol couldn’t. Jim had seen Spock’s frame lose the tension he’d been holding all afternoon.

In the cab Jim had leant on the door and tried not to fall asleep. Spock had still been talking, something about camping in Yellowstone, and how McCoy would have to teach him to roast marshmallows. It was sweet, almost adorable actually, especially with how McCoy had just watched him like Spock was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen.

But Spock is settled in to sleep on the couch.

 

Jim isn’t quite sure how, but once he’d met the man, Spock’s Doctor McCoy became McCoy, became Bones. It wasn’t like he had been lonely; he loves his crew and his friends back home, but somehow McCoy managed to slip back onto the ship with Spock. He pops up in Jim’s inbox, in his voicemails, in his physical mail, sometimes, and even more often when he talked to Spock, and it’s as if a piece of himself that had been rattling about loose is now fastened down and secured

Jim can’t say how or when it happened, but he knows Bones is his friend, Spock or no Spock, war or no war.

 

There wasn’t any question of staying at his place while they got their own apartments furnished. Bones has the same inappropriately large couch in the same tiny apartment on the same busy street, and Spock still knows where everything was like it’s his own place. Jim figures he won’t have to wait very long.

It’s a Tuesday when they get back, which means something to the rest of the world, if it feels like a strange, extraneous, piece of information to Jim, and McCoy has work. Neither he nor Spock really know what to do with themselves, so Jim buries himself in ordering the furniture for the new apartment, having his stuff shipped from his parents’ house, and trying to talk himself out of buying a small sailboat like the ones in the marina. Spock gets his stuff out of storage, buys the absolute bear minimum of furniture, and spends a considerable amount of time walking along the waterfront, or at Golden Gate park.

They have dinner together in McCoy’s apartment the second night, Wednesday, Jim reminds himself. Spock and McCoy bicker like it’s going out of style and Jim gives them until Friday to reach the center of the spiral they’re walking with each other. There’s a hockey game that night, and he has a few friends he wants to catch up with. Bones and Spock won’t want to come anyways, which is convenient.

 

He comes back late to find Spock sitting at McCoy’s counter reading.

“Did your preferred team win?” Spock asks.

“No,” Jim says, smiling anyways, “but it was a good game. Where’s Bones?”

“He is at work, he left shortly after you did, I believe his colleague wished for a consult.”

“Oh,” Jim says. Spock doesn’t seem particularly disappointed, and Jim wonders if maybe he’s wrong after all, for all he knows they’ve already sorted it all out.

 

Months later it’s clear beyond doubt that they haven’t. Spock has volunteered them to do community service, picking up trash on the beach on a windy day. They took a shuttle from the parking lot to the sand and a very pretty brunette woman had sat down next to Bones.

It’s there in the way McCoy completely ignores the woman’s flirting but Spock tracks her every movement. It’s blinding in the way Spock finds every excuse to put his hand on McCoy’s arm or shoulder and the way Bones does his absolute best to put himself within Spock’s body space whenever possible.

Jim can’t be sure what he’s missed. They’ve known each other for long before Jim met either of them, Spock has told him how they’d met as coworkers on some research assignment years back. It is possible there was some history they haven’t mentioned, some reason they’re reluctant to stop dancing around each other and get to the point.

He’s sure it’s not that they don’t know.

 

Being stateside means going to endless functions, a perk of his cushy and important desk job, a nod to Spock’s impressive qualifications. Invariably, Spock brings McCoy, no questions asked.

There’s a woman they’ve met at least twice, she’s smart, no doubt, pretty and charming as well, and she’s quite clearly got eyes for Spock.

“Perhaps I can interest you in dinner sometime,” she says. Jim doesn’t understand how she can miss the way Spock holds himself so painfully stiffly, or the way McCoy, who’s _right there_ , opens his mouth and then closes it awkwardly, looking away.

“While I am flattered,” Spock says, the panic in his voice well suppressed, “I must decline.” He can’t seem to help the glance at Bones who’s still doing his best (horribly obvious) impression of having been zoned out completely trying to overhear the conversation of the people several feet away.

She glances between them quick as a flash and then smiles as she says, “Of course,” which means she’s finally cottoned on to the messages they broadcast whenever they get within five feet of each other. She moves off gracefully and leaves Jim choking on the silence, heavy and meaningful and completely inappropriate for the time and place.

 

Whenever the levee finally breaks for them, Jim misses it. Instead Spock comes by Jim’s apartment unannounced one evening looking as scared as Jim’s ever seen him.

He says as if rehearsed, “I suspect this will not be much of a surprise, however I felt it only right to inform you that the Doctor and I,” and then he falters, and Jim can’t stand another minute from either of them like this.

“You’ve finally talked then?”

“Yes, we’re,” Spock begins, so Jim takes pity on him, grinning and grabbing him by the shoulders, at which point Spock gives up trying to explain in favor of looking down with his lips pressed tightly together as if Jim can’t tell he’s smiling.

 

“It took you two longer than I thought.” Jim says.

“Did it?” Bones asks, it sounds like an honest question, so Jim walks back his initial amused response and thinks about it.

“Well, I thought you may have already been a thing, Spock’s a difficult man to read, and he’s quite private. I thought maybe, since he talked about you at all,”

McCoy keeps watching him, and Jim wonders if he has any idea what Spock is like around other people, but he has to have, they’ve been friends for so long.

“Regardless,” he continues, “I mean, you were his ‘someone back home’, even if neither of you would admit it.”

McCoy’s cheeks go a bit pink. “I guess so.”

It’s not impossible that Bones really doesn’t know how much of his hand Spock had shown, stuck on the ship with the same five people it was acceptable to socialize with. The calls back home, the letters, from McCoy’s perspective, might just have all been how he and Spock were.

“He’d get that look on his face, maybe you’ve seen it, I don’t know, but the look people get when they’re away and homesick and they want to crawl into whatever picture or commline or memory and get back. I’ve seen it on a lot of people over a lot of things, but with Spock it was only ever about you.”

Jim watches McCoy swirl his drink, and tops it off for him, a conciliatory gesture, since he isn’t done embarrassing the man yet.

“I was pretty sure, actually, even up to meeting you. My family’s all the way in Iowa of course, and Spock’s a good friend, he said you’d put us up. I watched you that night and the way you two talked I was sure. But then Spock stayed on the couch with me. It was honestly a bit confusing,” he says, and smiles, making sure to catch Bones’s eye when he looks up. Spock had promised he could stay at McCoy’s which Jim had taken as confirmation that Spock was in some kind of position to be offering McCoy’s couch up, and then after they’d been all over each other at the bar, Jim had regretted not giving them some time alone.

“And I thought, for sure, once we get back, but still, it’s been ten months. You took it slow, you’re careful.” As he talks, he sees McCoy’s expression shift, from bored refusal to give in to Jim’s teasing, to something much more vulnerable.

His voice is slightly horse when he says, “I can’t screw this up.”

It isn’t an explanation, but Jim hasn’t asked for one, and he understands, at least a little. He supposes he would be scared too, if he ever tried to add sex to a standing relationship, like the one they had had. What they haven’t seen, and what Bones is apparently still just a little too blinded by the trees to notice, is that neither of them are capable of walking away from the other, no matter what kind of sex or romance does or doesn’t work out. He puts a hand on McCoy’s shoulder.

“No, you won’t, the two of you? You’ve always been in it for the long haul,” he says, and that part is sincere, which McCoy seems to appreciate. To lighten the mood he adds, “Not like me.”

 

The look McCoy gives him said he isn’t fooled, but joke or not, Jim knows he’s never going to be looking for what they found. He’s perfectly content with his life as it stands. Jim has loved people, genuinely, truly, for all the right reasons at all the wrong times, and he knows heartbreak is survivable. What matters is that he’s always had people to lean on. Jim doesn’t regret any of it, not when he’s found himself here, with Bones and Spock and a job that he loves.

Bones shakes his head and offers Jim the bottle, which he declines with a hand wave.

For the first time in Jim’s life he’s settled, and he wouldn’t trade it for the world.


End file.
